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Crusoe Castaways and Shipwrecks in the Perilous Age of Sail

Robinson Crusoe was one of the first Best Sellers and has captured the imagination for generations. This new book takes a 300th Anniversary of publication look at the book, the author, the wider subject. – Very Highly Recommended

IMAGE: B2866.jpgBUYNOW: tinyurl.com/y479jfyzLINKS: DESCRIPTION: Robinson Crusoe was one of the first Best Sellers and has captured
the imagination for generations. This new book takes a 300th Anniversary of
publication look at the book, the author, the wider subject. – Very Highly
RecommendedDaniel Foe was a flawed character who wrote 'Robinson Crusoe'. The book became
a best seller and has remained popular through the three hundred years since it was
published, a remarkable achievement for any author. His life and background are
examined by Mike Rendell and present a pretty fair picture of a character who
generally failed at most of the things he undertook. The exceptions being his success
in squandering money from his wife's family and his crowning success with
'Robinson Crusoe'.The author has looked at the claims and legends about the origins of the character
Robinson Crusoe and at a selection of wrecks, disasters, survival and stranding. This
makes into a fascinating book that also captures the high risks of sailing in the 17th ,
18th and early 19th Centuries.With the rapid expansion of the British Empire, the Royal Navy was also expanding
and stamping its supremacy on naval power. The French and Spanish still had
substantial fleets of warships and their own colonies, as did the Dutch. However, the
sea was a lawless place with many pirates and privateers, the difference between
them being no more than Letters of Compensation and Retribution, or Letters of
Mark, issued by a naval power to armed vessels in time of war when the private
warships were authorized to attack and seize ships and cargoes of the enemy.Command at sea was enforced ruthlessly and often brutally. With naval vessels,
when many in the crew were pressed into service against their will, the necessary,
but cruel, enforcement of authority led to mutiny, of which the story of HMS Bounty
is perhaps the best known. The mutineers did kill their officers on occasion but
frequently either put them ashore on a remote and deserted island, or put them in an
open boat. Life was little better on many merchant ships and a similar fate awaited
the officers. When naval crews mutinied they were most likely to find some where
to come ashore, sinking their ship to avoid being found and hanged. When merchant
ship crews mutinied, they often became pirates, making new use of their vessel.Although mutiny by crews was relatively rare, life at sea was enormously dangerous,
particularly for merchant ships, their crews and any passengers. A fundamental risk
was that there was very little control over the construction and use of ships, or the
qualifications of their officers and crews. Owners were always looking for ways of
reducing costs and the obvious way of cutting cost was in delaying refits and the
purchase of new ropes and sails. That increased the already high risk of sailing ships
in some terrible storm conditions. Unlike modern shipping, the captains had no global
weather forecasts or accurate all-weather navigation equipment. The charts of the day
also left much to be desired. As a result, a ship could end up a considerable distance
off the planned course, especially when the ship had run for days before a storm with
no opportunity to take 'sun shots' to establish a position. Equally, a captain could sail
his ship directly towards a violent storm, only realizing the danger when he was too
close to take avoiding action and sail around the worst of the conditions.Given all of the risks of the age, sinkings of ships were common and many vanished
without any trace. That introduced another danger. Owners who had run out of ways
of cutting cost decided to deliberately lose a ship after heavily insuring it and its
cargo. 'Coffin Ships' were a regular fear for crews because most would perish in the
sinking and only a small number involved in the sabotage who be able to plan an
escape. This progressively led to the adoption in the 19th Century of 'Standards', such
as the Plimsoll Line, to govern the construction of ships their loading and operation.
Insurance companies became increasingly effective in identifying fraudulent sinkings
of vessels. This progress has largely eliminated the events covered in this book, but
not entirely. Piracy is still a reality in the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, South
America and the South Seas. Ships are still deliberately sunk and can be victims of
freak weather, structural and mechanical failure, and errors by captain and crew.